Embodiments herein generally relate to discovery of devices connected to a network and to systems and methods that use printers (such as multi-function printer (MFPs)) in such networks and server devices outside such networks.
Network connected devices are often discovered by broadcasting messages to the entire network, and a list is made of all devices that respond to the broadcast. In computer networking, unicast transmissions involve the sending of messages to a single network destination identified by a unique address. Herein, the term “unicast” is used as shorthand to represent all forms of one-to-one communications between two computerized devices. The term unicast is contrasted with the term broadcast, which means transmitting the same data to all possible destinations. Unicast-based servers provide a unique stream for each unique user.
Common limitations of existing network discovery methods include excessive network traffic caused by broadcast or multicast messages and/or the scope of a broadcast message being limited to local subnet. Due to the relatively high network traffic caused by broadcast or multicast discovery methods, many enterprise customers disable the mobile Domain Name System (mDNS) packets that are used in some discovery methods. Further, some discovery methods require a server within each subnet visible to the server to enable cross subnet discovery. Other discovery methods send out multicast “hello” messages for discovery; however, such methods can be limited to the local subnet. Additional discovery methods send out Simple Network Managed Protocol (SNMP) queries to each Internet Protocol (IP) address in a user determined range. While these can cover multiple subnets, they generate significant network traffic.